“The Shadow Killer” by Gail Bowen is the third book in her Charlie D. series published as a Rapid Reads. Charlie D. is a nighttime radio D.J. on a mostly talk show. It is Father's Day weekend and Loser 1121 contacts the show to say he is going to kill his mother, two sisters and him. The person behind this is his dad. He didn't get a perfect dad, or an ok dad or even a bad dad, instead he got the over achiever, no time for you, hard working, I am doing it for you so shut up kind of dad and Loser 1121 wants some attention. Charlie D., who didn't do well with the father he got needs to put that aside and work hard to keep Loser 1121 talking until the police can trace the call and, hopefully defuse the situation. Listen to Harry Chapin’ “The Cat’s in the Cradle” and you will know about Loser 1121’s dad.

Rapid Reads, published by Orca Books are short, less than 100 pages, are written at a grade 4 – 6 level on topics that young adults are more likely to read. As a librarian I know that even good under 10 -12 age library users will stop reading once they become teens. I also know as a tutor of English as a Second Language (ESL) it is difficult to find books that will interest an adult but be reading at a level they can relate to and read. This is a good series with known authors writing on pertinent topics Try one or at least look at their web site.

http://orcabook.com/reluctantreaders/rapidreads.html ( )